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WOMAN’S  RIGHTS  TRACTS 


NO.  2. 


A  SERMON 


OF  THE 

PUBLIC  FUNCTION  OF  WOMAN, 

PREACHED  AT  THE  MUSIC-HALL,  BOSTON 

MARCH  27,  1853. 

BY  THEODORE  PARKER. 


I?'- 


Psalm  144  :  12.  —  “  That  oux  daughters  may  be  as  corner-stones.” 

(A 

Last  Sunday  I  spoke  of  the  Domestic  Function  of  Woman, 

■  what  she  may  do  for  the  higher  development  of  the  human  race  at 
home.  To-day,  I  ask  your  attention  to  a  sermon  of  the  Ideal 
Public  Function  of  Woman,  and  the  Economy  thereof,  in  the  higher 
'  development  of  the  Human  Race. 

The  domestic  function  of  woman,  as  a  housekeeper,  wife  and 
f* mother,  does  not  exhaust  her  powers.  Woman’s  function,  like 
“^charity,  begins  at  home;  then,  like  charity,  goes  everywhere.  To 
Xmake  one  half  of  the  human  race  consume  all  their  energies  in  the 
functions  of  housekeeper,  wife  and  mother,  is  a  monstrous  waste 
of  the  most  precious  material  that  God  ever  made. 

*  t 

I.  In  the  present  constitution  of  society,  there  are  some  un¬ 
married  women,  to  whom  the  domestic  function  is  little,  or  is 
; nothing ;  women  who  are  not  mothers,  not  wives,  not  house¬ 
keepers.  I  mean,  those  who  are  permanently  unmarried.  It  is 
a  great  defect  in  the  Christian  civilization,  that  so  many  women 
and  men  are  never  married.  There  may  be  three  women  in  a 
thousand  to  whom  marriage  would  be  disagreeable,  under  any 


372430 


THE  PUBLIC  FUNCTION  OF  WOMAN". 


possible  circumstances ;  perhaps  thirty  more  to  whom  it  would  be 
disagreeable,  under  the  actual  circumstances,  in  the  present  con¬ 
dition  of  the  family  and  the  community.  But  there  is  a  large 
number  of  women  who  continue  unmarried  for  no  reason  in  their 
nature,  from  no  conscious  dislike  of  the  present  domestic  and 
social  condition  of  mankind,  and  from  no  disinclination  to  marriage 
under  existing  circumstances.  This  is  a  deplorable  evil  —  alike 
a  misfortune  to  man  and  to  woman.  The  Catholic  church  has 
elevated  celibacy  to  the  rank  of  a  theological  virtue,  consecrating 
an  unnatural  evil ;  on  a  small  scale,  the  results  thereof  are  writ  in 
the  obscene  faces  of  many  a  priest,  false  to  his  human  nature, 
while  faithful  to  his  priestly  vow ;  and  on  a  large  scale,  in  the 
vice,  the  infamy  and  degradation  of  woman,  in  almost  all  Catholic 
lands. 

The  classic  civilization  of  Greece  and  Borne  had  the  same  vice 
with  the  Christian  civilization.  Other  forms  of  religion  have 
sought  to  get  rid  of  this  evil  by  polygamy  ;  and  thereby  they  de¬ 
graded  woman  still  further.  The  Mormons  are  repeating  the  same 
experiment,  based  not  on  philanthropy,  but  on  tyranny,  and  are 
still  further  debasing  woman  under  their  feet.  In  classic  and  in 
Christian  civilization  alone,  has  there  been  a  large  class  of  women 
permanently  unmarried  —  not  united  or  even  subordinated  to  man 
in  the  normal  marriage  of  one  to  one,  or  in  the  abnormal  con¬ 
junction  of  one  to  many.  This  class  of  unmarried  women  is  in¬ 
creasing  in  all  Christian  countries,  especially  in  those  that  are  old 
and  rich. 

Practically  speaking,  to  this  class  of  women  the  domestic  func¬ 
tion  is  very  little  ;  to  some  of  them,  it  is  nothing  at  all.  I  do  not 
think  that  this  condition  is  to  last,  — marriage  is  writ  in  the  soul 
of  man,  as  in  his  body,  —  but  it  indicates  a  transition,  it  is  a  step 
forward.  Womankind  is  advancing  from  that  period  when  every 
woman  was  a  slave,  and  marriage  of  some  sort  was  guaranteed  to 
every  woman,  because  she  was  dependent  on  man ;  I  say,  woman 
is  advancing  from  that,  to  a  state  of  independence,  where  woman 
shall  not  be  subordinated  to  man,  but  the  two  coordinated  together. 


T1IE  PUBLIC  FUNCTION  OF  WOMAN. 


3 


The  evil  that  I  deplore  is  transient  in  its  nature,  and  God  grant  it 
may  soon  pass  away  ! 

II.  That  is  not  all.  For  the  housekeeper,  the  wife  and  the 
mother,  the  domestic  is  not  the  only  function  ;  it  is  not  function 
enough  for  the  woman,  —  for  the  human  being, — more  than  it 
would  be  function  enough  for  the  father,  for  the  man.  After 
women  have  done  all  which  pertains  to  housekeeping  as  a  trade, 
to  housekeeping  as  one  of  the  fine  arts,  in  their  relation  as  wife 
and  mother,  —  after  they  have  done  all  for  the  order  of  the  house, 
for  the  order  of  the  husband,  and  the  order  of  the  children, —  they 
have  still  energies  to  spare  —  a  reserved  power  for  yet  other  work. 

There  are  three  classes  of  women. 

First,  domestic  Drudges,  who  are  wholly  taken  up  in  the  mate¬ 
rial  details  of  their  housekeeping,  husband-keeping,  child-keeping. 
Their  housekeeping  is  a  trade,  and  no  more ;  and,  after  they  have 
done  that,  there  is  no  more  which  they  can  do.  In  New  England 
it  is  a  small  class,  getting  less  every  year. 

Next,  there  are  domestio  Dolls,  wholly  taken  up  with  the  vain 
show  which  delights  the  eye  and  the  ear.  They  are  ornaments  of 
the  estate.  Similar  toys,  I  suppose,  will  one  day  be  more  cheaply 
manufactured  at  Paris  and  Niirnberg,  at  Frankfort-on-the-Maine, 
and  other  toy-shops  of  Europe,  out  of  wax  and  papier-mache,  and 
sold  in  Boston  at  the  haberdasher’s,  by  the  dozen.  These  ask 
nothing  beyond  their  function  as  dolls,  and  hate  all  attempts  to 
elevate  womankind. 

But  there  are  domestic  women,  who  order  a  house,  and  are  not 
mere  drudges,  —  adorn  it,  and  are  not  mere  dolls,  but  women. 
Some  of  these  —  a  great  many  of  them  —  conjoin  the  useful  of  the 
drudge  and  the  beautiful  of  the  doll  into  one  womanhood,  and 
have  a  great  deal  left  besides.  They  are  not  wholly  taken  up 
with  their  function  as  housekeeper,  wife  and  mother. 

In  the  progress  of  mankind,  and  the  application  of  masculine 
science  to  what  was  once  only  feminine  work,  —  whereby  so  much 
time  is  saved  from  the  wheel  and  the  loom,  the  oven  and  the  spit 
with  the  consequent  increase  of  riches,  the  saving  of  time,  and  the 


i 


4 


THE  PUBLIC  FUNCTION  OF  WOMAN. 


intellectual  education  which  comes  in  consequence  thereof,  —  tkis 
class  of  women  is  continually  enlarging.  With  us  in  New  England, 
—  in  all  the  north,  —  it  is  a  very  large  class. 

Well,  what  shall  these  domestic  women  do  with  their  spare 
energies  and  superfluous  power?  Once,  a  malicious  proverb  said, 
“  The  shoemaker  must  not  go  beyond  his  last.”  Every  shoemaker 
looks  on  that  proverb  with  appropriate  contempt.  He  is  a  shoe¬ 
maker  ;  but  he  was  a  man  first,  a  shoemaker  next.  Shoemaking 
is  an  accident  of  his  manhood,  not  manhood  an  accident  of  his 
shoemaking.  You  know  what  haughty  scorn  the  writer  of  the 
apocryphal  book  of  Ecclesiasticus  pours  out  on  every  farmer, 
“who  glorieth  in  the  goad,”  every  carpenter  and  blacksmith,  every 
jeweller  and  potter.  They  shall  not  be  sought  for,  says  this  aris¬ 
tocrat,  in  the  public  councils ;  they  shall  not  sit  high  in  the  con¬ 
gregation  ;  they  shall  not  sit  in  the  judges’  seat,  nor  understand 
the  sentence  of  judgment;  they  cannot  declare  justice.  Aristotle 
and  Cicero  thought  no  better  of  the  merchants ;  they  were  only 
busy  in  trading.  Miserable  people !  quoth  these  great  men ; 
what  have  they  to  do  with  affairs  of  state — merchants,  mechanics, 
farmers?  It  is  only  for  kings,  nobles,  and  famous  rich  men,  who 
do  no  business,  but  keep  slaves!  Still,  a  great  many  men  at  this 
day  have  just  the  same  esteem  for  women  that  those  haughty 
persons  of  whom  I  have  spoken  had  for  mechanics  and  for  mer¬ 
chants.  A  great  many  sour  proverbs  there  are,  which  look  the 
same  way.  But,  just  now,  such  is  the  intellectual  education  of 
women  of  the  richer  class  in  all  our  large  towns,  that  these  sour 
proverbs  will  not  go  down  so  well  as  of  old.  Even  in  Boston, 
spite  of  the  attempts  of  the  city  government  to  prevent  the  higher 
public  education  of  women,  —  diligently  persisted  in  for  many 
years,  —  the  young  women  of  wealthy  families  get  a  better  educa¬ 
tion  than  the'*young  men  of  wealthy  families  do ;  and  that  fact  is 
going  to  report  itself  presently.  The  best-educated  young  men 
are  commonly  poor  men’s  sons  ;  but  the  best  educated  young 
women  are  quite  uniformly  rich  men’s  daughters. 

A  well-educated  young  woman,  fond  of  Goethe,  and  Dante,  and 
Shakspeare,  and  Cervantes,  marrying  an  ill-educated  young  man, 


THE  PUBLIC  FUNCTION  OF  WOMAN. 


5 


who  cares  for  nothing  but  his  horse,  his  cigar  and  his  bottle ;  who 
only  knows  how  to  sleep  after  dinner,  a  “  great  heap  of  husband,” 
curled  up  on  the  sofa,  and  in  the  evening  can  only  laugh  at  a 
play,  and  not  understand  the  Italian  words  of  an  opera,  which  his 
wife  knows  by  heart ;  she,  I  say,  marrying  him,  tv  ill  not  accept 
the  idea  that  he  is  her  natural  lord  and  master  ;  she  cannot  look 
up  to  him,  but  rather  down.  The  domestic  function  does  not  con¬ 
sume  all  her  time  or  talent.  She  knows  how  to  perform  much  of 
her  household  work,  as  a  manufacturer  weaves  cotton,  or  spins 
hemp,  or  forges  iron,  with  other  machinery,  by  other  hands.  She 
is  the  housekeeping  head ;  aud  after  she  has  kept  house  as  wife 
and  as  mother,  and  has  done  all,  she  has  still  energies  to  spare. 

That  is  a  large  class  of  women  ;  it  is  a  great  deal  larger  than 
men  commonly  think  it  is.  It  is  continually  enlarging,  and  you 
see  why.  When  all  manufactures  were  domestic,  —  when  every 
garment  was  made  at  home,  every  web  wove  at  home,  every 
thread  spun  at  home,  every  fleece  dyed  at  home,  —  when  the  hus¬ 
band  provided  the  wmol  or  the  sheepskin,  and  the  wife  made  it  a 
coat, —  when  the  husband  brought  home  a  sack  of  corn  on  a  mule’s 
back,  and  the  wife  pounded  it  in  a  mortar,  or  ground  it  between 
two  stones,  as  in  the  Old  Testament,  —  then  the  domestic  func¬ 
tion  might  well  consume  all  the  time  of  a  very  able-headed 
woman.  But  now-a-days,  when  so  much  work  is  done  abroad, — 
when  the  flour-mills  of  Rochester  and  Boston  take  the  place  of  the 
pestle  and  mortar,  and  the  hand-mill  of  the  Old  Testament,  — 
when  Lowell  and  Lawrence  are  two  enormous  Old  Testament 
women,  spinning  and  weaving  year  out  and  year  in,  day  and  night 
both,  —  when  so  much  of  woman’s  work  is  done  by  the  butcher  and 
the  baker,  by  the  tailor  and  the  cook  and  the  gas-maker,  and  she 
is  no  longer  obliged  to  dip  or  mould  with  her  own  hands  every 
candle  that  “  goeth  not  out  by  night,”  as  in  the  Old  Testament 
woman’s  housekeeping,  — you  see  how  very  much  of  woman’s  time  is 
left  for  other  functions.  This  will  become  yet  more  the  case.  Ere 
long,  a  great  deal  of  lofty  science  will  be  applied  to  housekeeping, 
and  work  be  done  by  other  than  human  hands  in  the  house,  as  out 
of  it.  And  accordingly,  you  see,  that  the  class  of  women  not 


6 


THE  PUBLIC  FUNCTION  OF  WOMAN. 


wholly  taken  up  by  the  domestic  function  will  get  larger  and 
larger. 

III.  Then,  there  is  a  third  class  of  women,  who  have  no  taste 
and  no  talent  for  the  domestic  function.  Perhaps  these  are  ex¬ 
ceptional  women  ;  some  of  them  exceptional  by  redundance ;  they 
hare  talents  not  needed  in  this  function  ;  others  are  exceptional 
by  defect ;  with  only  a  common  talent,  they  have  none  for  house¬ 
keeping.  It  is  as  cruel  a  lot  to  set  these  persons  to  such  work  as 
it  would  be  to  take  a  born  sailor  and  make  him  a  farmer ;  or  to 
take  a  man  who  is  born  to  drive  oxen,  delights  to  give  the  kine 
fodder,  and  has  a  genius  for  it,  and  shut  him  up  in  the  forecastle 
of  a  ship.  Who  would  think  of  making  J enny  Lind  nothing  but 
a  housekeeper  ?  or  of  devoting  Madame  de  Stael  or  Miss  Dix 
wholly  to  that  function?  or  a  dozen  other  women  that  any  man 
can  name? 

IV.  Then  there  is  another  class  of  women,  —  those  who  are 
not  married  yet,  but  are  to  be  married.  They,  likewise,  have 
spare  time  on  their  hands,  which  they  know  not  what  to  do  with. 
Women  of  this  latter  class  have  sometimes  asked  me  what  there 
was  for  them  to  do.  I  could  not  tell. 

All  these  four  put  together  make  up  a  large  class  of  women, 
who  need  some  other  function  beside  the  domestic.  What  shall 
it  be  ?  In  the  middle  ages,  when  the  Catholic  church  held  its 
iron  hand  over  the  world,  these  women  went  into  the  church.  The 
permanently  unmarried,  getting  dissatisfied, , became  nuns;  often 
calling  that  a  virtue  which  was  only  a  necessity,  —  making  a  reli¬ 
gious  principle  out  of  an  involuntary  measure.  Others  volunta¬ 
rily  went  thither.  The  attempt  is  making  anew  in  England,  by 
some  of  the  most  pious  people,  to  revive  the  scheme.  It  failed  a 
thousand  years  ago,  and  the  experiment  brought  a  curse  on  man. 
It  will  always  fail ;  and  it  ought  to  fail.  Human  nature  cries 
out  against  it. 


THE  PUBLIC  FUNCTION  OF  WOMAN. 


7 


Let  us  look,  and  see  wliat  women  may  do  here. 

First,  there  are  intellectual  pursuits,  devotion  to  science,  art, 
literature  and  the  like. 

Well,  in  the  first  place,  that  is  not  popular.  Learned  women 
are  met  with  ridicule ;  they  arc  bid  to  mend  their  husband’s  gar¬ 
ments,  or  their  own  ;  they  are  treated  with  scorn.  Foolish  young 
man  number  one,  in  a  liquor-shop,  of  a  morning,  knocks  off  the 
ashes  from  the  end  of  his  cigar,  and  says  to  foolish  young  man 
number  two,  who  is  taking  soda  to  wash  off  the  effect  of  last 
night’s  debauch,  or  preparing  for  a  similar  necessity  to-morrow 
morning,  in  the  presence  of  foolish  young  man  number  three,  four, 
five,  six,  and  so  on,  indefinitely,  “  I  do  not  like  learned  young 
women ;  they  puzzle  me.”  So  they  do  ;  puzzle  him  very  much. 
I  once  heard  a  foolish  young  man,  full  of  self-conceit  and  his 
father’s  claret,  say,  “  I  had  rather  have  a  young  woman  ask  me 
to  waltz,  than  to  explain  an  allusion  in  Dante.”  Very  likely;  he 
had  studied  waltzing,  and  not  Dante.  And  his  mother,  full  of 
conceit  and  her  own  hyson,  said,  “  I  perfectly  agree  with  you. 
My  father  said  that  women  had  nothing  to  do  with  learning.” 
Accordingly,  he  gave  her  none,  and  that  explained  the  counsel. 

Then,  too,  foolish  men,  no  longer  young,  say  the  same  thing, 
and  seek  to  bring  down  their  wives  and  daughters  to  their  own 
poor  mediocrity  of  wit  and  inferiority  of  culture. 

I  say,  this  intellectual  calling  is  not  popular.  I  am  sorry  it  is 
not ;  but,  even  if  it  were,  it  is  not  wholly  satisfactory ;  it  suits 
but  a  few.  In  the  present  stage  of  human  development,  there  are 
not  many  men  who  are  satisfied  with  a  merely  intellectual  calling; 
they  want  something  practical,  as  well  as  speculative.  There  are 
a  thousand  practical  shoemakers  to  every  speculative  botanist.  It 
will  be  so  for  many  years  to  come.  There  are  ten  thousand  car¬ 
penters  to  a  single  poet  or  philosopher  who  dignifies  his  nature 
with  song  or  with  science.  See  how  dissatisfied  our  most  eminent 
intellectual  men  become  with  science  and  literature.  A  professor 
of  Greek  is  sorry  he  was  not  a  surveyor  or  engineer ;  the  presi¬ 
dent  of  a  college  longs  to  be  a  member  of  congress ;  the  most 
accomplished  scholars,  historians,  romancers, — they  wish  to  be 


8 


THE  PUBLIC  FUNCTION  OF  WOMAN. 


collectors  at  Boston,  consuls  at  Liverpool,  and  the  like;  longing 
for  some  practical  calling,  where  they  can  make  their  thought  a 
thing.  Of  the  intellectual  men  whom  I  know,  I  can  count  on  the 
fingers  of  a  single  hand  all  that  are  satisfied  with  pure  science, 
pure  art,  pure  literature. 

Woman,  like  man,  wants  to  make  her  thought  a  thing;  at  least, 
wants  things  to  work  her  pattern  of  thought  upon.  Still,  as  the 
world  grows  older,  and  wiser,  and  better,  more  persons  will  find  an 
abiding  satisfaction  in  these  lofty  pursuits.  I  am  rejoiced  to  see 
women  thus  attracted  thitherward.  Some  women  there  are  who 
find  an  abiding  satisfaction  in  literature ;  it  fills  up  their  leisure. 
I  rejoice  that  it  is  so. 

Then  there  are,  next,  the  various  philanthropies  of  the  age.  In 
these,  the  spare  energies  of  woman  have  always  found  a  congenial 
sphere.  It  is  amazing  to  see  how  woman’s  charity,  which  “  never 
faileth,”  palliates  the  injustice  of  man,  which  never  has  failed  yet. 
Men  fight  battles ;  women  heal  the  wounds  of  the  sick  : 

“  Forgot  are  hatred,  wrongs,  and  fears; 

The  plaintive  voice  alone  she  hears,  — 

Sees  but  the  dying  man,” 

and  does  not  ask  if  foe  or  friend.  Messrs.  Pinchem  &  Peelem 
organize  an  establishment,  wherein  the  sweat  and  tears  and  blood 
of  the  poor  turn  the  wheels ;  every  pivot  and  every  shaft  rolls  on 
quivering  human  flesh.  The  wealthy  capitalists, 

“  Half  ignorant,  they  turn  an  easy  wheel, 

"Which  sets  sharp  racks  at  work,  to  pinch  and  peel.” 

The  wives  and  daughters  of  the  wealthy  house  go  out  to  “  undo 
the  heavy  burdens,  and  let  the  oppressed  go  free ;  ”  to  heal  the 
sick  and  teach  the  ignorant,  whom  their  fathers,  their  husbands, 
their  lovers,  have  made  sick,  oppressed,  and  ignorant.  Ask  Man¬ 
chester,  in  Old  England  and  in  New,  if  this  is  not  so ;  ask  Lon¬ 
don,  ask  Boston. 

The  moral,  affectional,  and  religious  feelings  of  woman  fit  her 


THE  PUBLIC  FUNCTION  OF  WOMAN. 


9 


for  this  work.  Her  patience,  her  gentleness,  her  power  to  concil¬ 
iate,  her  sympathy  with  man,  her  trust  in  God,  beautifully  pre¬ 
pare  her  for  this ;  and,  accordingly,  she  comes  in  the  face  of  what 
man  calls  justice  as  an  angel  of  mercy;  before  his  hate  as  an 
angel  of  love ;  between  his  victim  and  his  selfishness  with  the  self- 
denial  of  Paul  and  the  self-sacrifice  of  Jesus.  Look  at  any  vil¬ 
lage  in  New  England,  and  in  Old  England,  at  the  Sacs  and  Foxes, 
at  the  Hottentots  and  the  Esquimaux ;  it  is  the  same  thing ;  it  is 
so  in  all  ages,  in  all  climes,  in  all  stages  of  civilization,  in  all 
ranks  of  society,  —  the  highest  and  the  lowest,  —  in  all  forms  of 
religion,  all  sects  of  Christianity.  It  has  been  so  from  Dorcas, 
in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  who  made  coats  and  garments  for  the 
poor,  down  to  Miss  Dix,  in  our  day,  who  visits  jails  and  houses  of 
correction,  and  leads  Mr.  Fillmore  to  let  Capt.  Drayton  out  of 
jail>  where  he  was  placed  for  the  noblest  act  of  his  life. 

But  these  philanthropies  are  not  enough  for  the  employment 
of  women ;  and  if  all  the  spare  energies  of  womankind  were  set 
to  this  work,  —  to  palliate  the  consequences  of  man’s  injustice,  — 
it  would  not  be  exactly  the  work  which  woman  wants.  There  are 
some  women  who  take  no  special  interest  in  this.  For  woman  is 
not  all  philanthropy,  though  very  much  ;  she  has  other  faculties 
which  want  to  be  developed  besides  the  heart  to  feel.  Still  more, 
that  is  not  the  only  thing  which  mankind  wants.  We  need  the 
justice  which  removes  causes,  as  well  as  the  charity  that  palliates 
effects ;  and  woman,  standing  continually  between  the  victim  and 
the  sabre  which  would  cleave  him  through,  is  not  performing  her 
only  function,  not  her  highest ;  high  as  that  is,  it  is  not  her  high¬ 
est.  If  the  feminine  swallow  drives  away  the  flies  from  a  poor 
fox  struggling  for  life,  another  set  of  flies  light  upon  him,  and  suck 
every  remaining  drop  of  blood  out  of  his  veins,  as  in  the  old  fable. 
Besides,  if  the  fox  finds  that  a  womanly  swallow  comes  to  drive 
off  the  flies,  he  depends  on  her  wing  and  not  on  his  own  brush,  and 
becomes  less  of  a  fox.  If  a  miser,  or  any  base  man,  sees  that  a 
woman  constantly  picks  up  the  man  whom  he  knocks  down  with 
the  left  hand  of  Usury  or  the  right  hand  of  Rum,  he  will  go  on 
with  his  extortion  or  his  grog,  because,  he  says,  “  I  should  have 


10 


THE  FUBUC  FUNCTION  OF  WOMAN. 


done  the  man  harm,  but  a  woman  picked  him  up,  and  money  comes 
into  my  pocket,  and  no  harm  to  the  man  !  ”  The  evils  of  society 
would  become  worse  and  worse,  just  as  they  are  increased  by 
indiscriminate  alms-giving.  That  is  not  enough. 

Then  there  are  various  practical  works  left  by  common  consent 
to  woman. 

First,  there  is  domestic  service,  woman  working  as  an  append 
age  to  some  household ;  a  hired  hand,  or  a  hired  head,  to  help  the 
housekeeper. 

Then  there  is  mechanical  labor,  in  a  factory,  or  a  shop  ;  spin¬ 
ning,  weaving,  setting  type,  binding  books,  making  shoes,  coloring 
maps,  and  a  hundred  other  things. 

Next,  there  is  trade,  in  a  small  way,  from  the  basket-woman 
with  her  apples  at  every  street-corner,  up  to  the  confectioner  and 
haberdasher,  with  their  well-filled  shops.  In  a  few  retail  shops 
which  venture  to  brave  popular  opinion,  woman  is  employed  at 
the  counter. 

As  a  fourth  thing,  there  is  the  business  of  public  and  private 
teaching,  in  various  departments.  All  these  are  well ;  they  are 
unavoidable,  they  are  absolutely  necessary ;  they  furnish  employ¬ 
ment  to  many  women,  and  are  a  blessed  resource. 

I  rejoice  that  the  field-work  of  the  farmer  is  not  done  by 
woman’s  hand  in  the  free  portions  of  America.  It  imbrutes 
women  in  Ireland,  in  France,  and  in  Spain.  I  am  glad  that  the 
complicated  machinery  of  life  furnishes  so  much  more  work  for 
the  light  and  delicate  hand  of  woman.  But  I  confess  I  mourn 
that  where  her  work  is  as  profitable  as  man’s,  her  pay  is  not  half 
so  much.  A  woman  who  should  teach  a  public  school  well  would 
be  paid  four  or  six  dollars  a  week ;  while  a  man,  who  should  teach 
no  better,  would  be  paid  two,  three,  four,  or  six  times  that  sum. 
It  is  so  in  all  departments  of  woman’s  work  that  I  am  acquainted 
with. 

These  employments  are  very  well,  but  still  they  are  not 
enough. 

llich  wcmen  do  n:t  engage  in  these  callings.  For  rich  women 


THE  PUBLIC  FUNCTION  OF  WOMAN. 


11 


there  is  no  profession  left  except  marriage.  After  school-time, 
woman  has  nothing  to  do  till  she  is  married ;  I  mean,  almost 
nothing,  —  nothing  that  is  adequate.  Accordingly,  she  must 
choose  betwixt  a  husband  and  nothing ;  and,  sometimes,  that  is 
choosing  between  two  nothings.  There  are  spare  energies  which 
seek  employment  before  marriage,  and  after  marriage. 

These  callings  are  not  all  that  the  race  of  woman  needs;  not 
all  that  her  human  nature  requires.  She  has  the  same  human 
nature  which  man  has,  and,  of  course,  the  same  natural  human 
rights.  Woman’s  natural  right  for  its  rightfulness  does  not  depend 
on  the  bodily  or  mental  power  to  assert  and  to  maintain  it,  —  on 
the  great  arm  or  on  the  great  head ;  it  depends  only  on  human 
nature  itself,  which  God  made  the  same  in  the  frailest  woman  as 
in  the  biggest  giant. 

If  woman  is  a  human  being,  first,  she  has  the  Nature  of  a 
human  being ;  next,  she  has  the  Right  of  a  human  being ;  third, 
she  has  the  Duty  of  a  human  being.  The  Nature  is  the  capacity 
to  possess,  to  use,  to  develop,  and  to  enjoy  every  human  faculty; 
the  Right  is  the  right  to  enjoy,  develop,  and  use  every  human 
faculty ;  and  the  Duty  is  to  make  use  of  the  Right,  and  make 
her  human  nature  human  history.  She  is  here  to  develop  her 
human  nature,  enjoy  her  human  rights,  perform  her  human  duty. 
Womankind  is  to  do  this  for  herself,  as  much  as  mankind  for  him¬ 
self.  A  woman  has  the  same  human  nature  that  a  man  has ;  the 
same  human  rights,  to  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness ; 
the  same  human  duties ;  and  they  are  as  unalienable  in  a  womar 
as  in  a  man. 

Each  man  has  the  natural  right  to  the  normal  development  of 
his  nature,  so  far  as  it  is  general-human,  neither  man  nor  woman, 
but  human.  Each  woman  has  the  natural  right  to  the  normal 
development  of  her  nature,  so  far  as  it  is  general-human,  neither 
woman  nor  man.  But  each  man  has  also  a  natural  and  unalien¬ 
able  right  to  the  normal  development  of  his  peculiar  nature  as 
man,  where  he  differs  from  woman.  Each  woman  has  just  the 
same  natural  and  unalienable  right  to  the  normal  development  of 


12 


TIIE  PUBLIC  FUNCTION  OF  WOMAN. 


her  peculiar  nature  as  woman,  and  not  man.  All  that  is  unde¬ 
niable. 

Now  see  what  follows.  Woman  has  the  same  individual  right 
to  determine  her  aim  in  life,  and  to  follow  it ;  has  the  same  indi¬ 
vidual  rights  of  body  and  of  spirit,  — -  of  mind  and  conscience, 
and  heart  and  soul ;  the  same  physical  rights,  the  same  intellect¬ 
ual,  moral,  affectional  and  religious  rights,  that  man  has.  That 
is  true  of  womankind  as  a  whole ;  it  is  true  of  J ane,  Ellen  and 
Sally,  and  each  special  woman  that  can  be  named. 

Every  person,  man  or  woman,  is  an  integer,  an  individual,  a 
whole  person ;  and  also  a  portion  of  the  race,  and  so  a  fraction  of 
humankind.  Well,  the  rights  of  individualism  are  not  to  be  pos> 
sessed,  developed,  used  and  enjoyed,  by  adife  in  solitude,  but  by 
joint  action.  Accordingly,  to  complete  and  perfect  the  individua. 
man  or  woman,  and  give  each  an  opportunity  to  possess,  use,  de¬ 
velop  and  enjoy  these  rights,  there  must  be  concerted  and  joini 
action  ;  else  individuality  is  only  a  possibility,  not  a  reality.  Sa 
the  individual  rights  of  woman  carry  with  them  the  same  domes* 
tic,  social,  ecclesiastical  and  political  rights,  as  those  of  man. 

The  Family,  Community,  Church  and  State,  are  four  modes  of 
action  which  have  grown  out  of  human  nature  in  its  historical  de¬ 
velopment  ;  they  are  all  necessary  for  the  development  of  mankind ; 
machines  which  the  human  race  has  devised,  in  order  to  possess, 
use,  develop  and  enjoy  their  rights  as  human  beings,  their  rights 
also  as  men. 

These  are  just  as  necessary  for  the  development  of  woman  as 
of  man ;  and,  as  she  has  the  same  nature,  right  and  duty,  as  man,  it 
follows  that  she  has  the  same  right  to  use,  shape  and  control, 
these  four  institutions,  for  her  general  human  purpose  and  for  her 
special  feminine  purpose,  that  man  has  to  control  them  for  his 
general  human  purpose  and  his  special  masculine  purpose.  All 
that  is  as  undeniable  as  anything  in  metaphysics  or  mathematics. 

So,  then,  woman  has  the  same  natural  rights  as  man.  In  do¬ 
mestic  affairs,  she  is  to  determine  her  own  sphere  as  much  as  man ; 
and  say  where  her  function  is  to  begin,  when  it  shall  begin,  with 


THE  rUBLIC  FUNCTION  OF  WOMAN. 


13 


whom  it  shall  begin ;  where  it  shall  end,  when  it  shall  end,  and 
what  it  shall  comprise. 

Then  she  has  the  same  right  to  freedom  of  industry  that  man 
has.  I  do  not  believe  that  the  hard  callings  of  life  will  ever  suit 
woman.  It  is  not  little  boys  who  go  out  as  lumberers,  but  great 
men,  with  sinewy,  brawny  arms.  I  doubt  that  laborious  callings, 
like  navigation,  engineering,  lumbering  and  the  like,  will  ever  be 
agreeable  to  woman.  Her  feminine  body  and  feminine  spirit 
naturally  turn  away  from  such  occupations.  I  have  seen  women 
gathering  the  filth  of  the  streets  in  Liverpool,  sawing  stone  in  a 
mason’s  yard  in  Paris,  carrying  earth  in  baskets  on  their  heads 
for  a  railway  embankment  at  Naples ;  but  they  were  obviously  out 
of  place,  and  only  consented  to  this  drudgery  when  driven  by 
Poverty’s  iron  whip.  But  there  are  many  employments  in  the 
departments  of  mechanical  work,  of  trade,  little  and  extended, 
where  woman  could  go,  and  properly  go.  Some  women  have  a 
good  deal  of  talent  for  trade,  —  this  in  a  small  way,  that  on  the 
largest  scale.  Why  should  not  they  exercise  their  commercial 
talents  in  competition  with  man  ?  Is  it  right  for  woman  to  be  a 
domestic  manufacturer  in  the  family  of  Solomon  or  Priam,  and  of 
every  thrifty  husband,  and  wrong  for  her  to  be  a  public  manufac¬ 
turer,  on  her  own  account  ?  She  might  spin  when  the  motive-power 
was  a  wheel-pin  of  wood  in  her  hand, — may  she  not  use  the  Mer¬ 
rimack  and  the  Connecticut  for  her  wheel-pin  ?  or  must  she  be 
only  the  manufacturing  servant  of  man,  —  never  her  own  master  ? 

Much  of  the  business  of  education  already  falls  to  the  hands  of 
woman.  In  the  last  twenty  years,  there  has  been  a  great  prog¬ 
ress  in  the  education  of  women,  in  Massachusetts,  in  all  New 
England.  The  high  schools  for  girls  —  and,  still  better,  those 
for  girls  and  boys — have  been  of  great  service.  Almost  all  the 
large  towns  of  this  commonwealth  have  honored  themselves  with 
these  blessed  institutions ;  in  Boston,  only  the  daughters  of  the 
rich  can  possess  such  an  education  as  hundreds  of  noble  girls  lofig 
to  acquire.  With  this  enhancement  of  culture,  women  have  been 
continually  rising  higher  and  higher  as  teachers.  The  State  Nor- 


14 


THE  PUBLIC  FUNCTION  OF  WOMAN. 


mal  Schools  have  helped  in  this  movement.  It  used  to  be  thought 
that  only  an  able-bodied  man  could  manage  the  large  boys  of  a 
country  or  a  city  school.  Even  he  was  sometimes  thrust  out  at 
the  door  or  the  window  of  “  his  noisy  mansion,”  by  his  rough 
pupils.  An  able-headed  woman  has  commonly  succeeded  better 
than  men  merely  able-bodied.  She  has  tried  conciliation  rather 
than  violence,  and  appealed  to  something  a  little  deeper  than  aught 
which  force  could  ever  touch.  The  women-teachers  are  now  doing 
an  important  work  for  the  elevation  of  their  race  and  all  human 
kind.  But  it  is  commonly  thought  woman  must  not  engage  in  the 
higher  departments  thereof.  I  once  knew  a  woman,  wife  and 
mother  and  housekeeper,  who  taught  the  severest  disciplines  of 
our  highest  college,  and  instructed  young  men  while  she  rocked  the 
cradle  with  her  foot,  and  mended  garments  with  her  hands,  —  one 
of  the  most  accomplished  scholars  of  New  England.  Not  long 
ago,  the  daughter  of  a  poor  widowed  seamstress  was  seen  reading  the 
Koran  in  Arabic.  There  was  but  one  man  in  the  town  who  could 
do  the  same,  and  he  was  a  “  Learned  Blacksmith.”  Women  not 
able  to  teach  in  these  things  !  He  must  be  rather  a  confident 
professor  who  thinks  a  woman  cannot  do  what  he  can.  I  rejoice 
at  the  introduction  of  women  into  common  schools,  academies  and 
high  schools ;  and  I  thank  God  that  the  man  who  has  done  so 
much  for  public  education  in  Massachusetts  is  presently  to  be  the 
head  of  a  college  in  Ohio,  whore  women  and  men  are  to  study 
together,  and  where  a  woman  is  to  be  professor  of  Latin  and  Nat¬ 
ural  History.  These  are  good  signs. 

The  business  of  public  lecturing,  also,  is  quite  important  in  New 
England,  and  I  am  glad  to  see  that  woman  presses  into  that,  — 
not  without  success. 

The  work  of  conducting  a  journal,  daily,  weekly,  or  quarterly, 
woman  proves  that  she  can  attend  to  quite  as  decently,  and  as 
strongly,  too,  as  most  men. 

Then  there  are  what  are  called  the  Professions  —  Medicine, 
L&w  and  Theology. 

The  profession  of  medicine  seems  to  belong  peculiarly  to  woman 
by  nature ;  part  of  it,  exclusively.  She  is  a  nurse,  and  half  a 


THE  TUBLIC  FUNCTION  OF  WOMAN. 


15 


doctor,  by  nature.  It  is  quite  encouraging  that  medical  schools 
are  beginning  to  instruct  women,  and  special  schools  get  founded 
for  the  use  of  women;  that  sagacious  men  are  beginning  to  employ 
women  as  their  physicians.  Great  good  is  to  be  expected  from 
that. 

As  yet,  I  believe  no  woman  acts  as  a  lawyer.  But  I  see  no 
reason  why  the  profession  of  law  might  not  be  followed  by  women 
as  well  as  by  men.  He  must  be  rather  an  uncommon  lawyer  who 
thinks  no  feminine  head  could  compete  with  him.  Most  lawyers 
that  I  have  known  are  rather  mechanics  at  law  than  attorneys  or 
scholars  at  law ;  and,  in  the  mechanical  part,  woman  could  do  as 
well  as  man,  —  could  be  as  good  a  conveyancer,  could  follow  pre¬ 
cedents  as  carefully,  and  copy  forms  as  nicely.  And,  in  the  high¬ 
er  departments  of  legal  work,  they  who  have  read  the  plea  which 
Lady  Alice  Lille  made  in  England,  when  she  could  not  speak  by 
attorney,  must  remember.. there  is  some  eloquence  in  woman’s 
tongue,  which  courts  find  it  rather  hard  to  resist.  I  think  her 
presence  would  mend  the  manners  of  the  court,  —  of  the  bench,  not 
less  than  of  the  bar. 

In  the  business  of  theology,  I  could  never  see  why  a  woman,  if 
she  wished,  should  not  preach,  as  well  as  men.  It  would  be  hard, 
in  the  present  condition  of  the  pulpit,  to  say  she  had  not  intellect 
enough  for  that!  I  am  glad  to  find,  now  and  then,  women  preach¬ 
ers,  and  rejoice  at  their  success.  A  year  ago,  I  introduced  to  you 
the  Reverend  Miss  Brown,  educated  at  an  Orthodox  theological 
seminary;  you  smiled  at  the  name  of  Reverend,  Miss.  She  has 
since  been  invited  to  settle  by  several  congregations,  of  unblem¬ 
ished  orthodoxy  ;  and  has  passed  on,  looking  further. 

It  seems  to  me  that  woman,  by  her  peculiar  constitution,  is 
better  qualified  to  teach  religion  than  any  merely  intellectual  dis¬ 
cipline.  The  Quakers  have  always  recognized  the  natural  right 
of  woman  to  perform  the  same  ecclesiastical  function  as  man.  At 
this  day,  the  most  distinguished  preacher  of  that  denomination  is 
a  woman,  who  adorns  her  domestic  calling  as  housekeeper,  wife 
and  mother,  with  the  same  womanly  dignity  and  sweetness  which 
mark  her  public  deportment. 


16 


THE  PUBLIC  FUNCTION  OF  WOMAN. 


If  woman  had  been  consulted,  it  seems  to  me  theology  would 
have  been  in  a  vastly  better  state  than  it  is  now.  I  do  not  think 
that  any  woman  would  ever  have  preached  the  damnation  of 
babies  new-born ;  and  “  hell,  paved  with  the  skulls  of  infants  not 
a  span  long,”  would  be  a  region  }^et  to  be  discovered  in  theology. 
A  celibate  monk  —  with  God’s  curse  writ  on  his  face,  which  knew 
no  child,  no  wife,  no  sister,  and  blushed  that  he  had  a  mother  — 
might  well  dream  of  such  a  thing.  He  had  been  through  the  pre¬ 
liminary  studies.  Consider  the  ghastly  attributes  which  are 
commonly  put  upon  God  in  the  popular  theology ;  the  idea  of 
infinite  wrath,  of  infinite  damnation,  and  total  depravity,  and  all 
that.  Why,  you  could  not  get  a  woman,  that  had  intellect  enough 
to  open  her  mouth,  to  preach  these  things  anywhere.  Women 
think  they  think  that  they  believe  them  ;  but  they  do  not.  Celi¬ 
bate  priests,  who  never  knew  marriage,  or  what  paternity  was,  who 
thought  woman  was  a  “  pollution,”  —  they  invented  these  ghastly 
doctrines;  and  when  I  have  heard  the  Athanasian  Creed  and  the 
Dies  Irge  chanted  by  monks,  with  the  necks  of  bulls  and  the  lips 
of  donkeys,  —  why,  I  have  understood  where  the  doctrine  came 
from,  and  have  felt  the  appropriateness  of  their  braying  out  the 
damnation  hymns  ;  — woman  could  not  do  it.  We  shut  her  out  of 
the  choir,  out  of  the  priest’s  house,  out  of  the  pulpit ;  and  then  the 
priest,  with  unnatural  vows,  came  in,  and  taught  these  “  doctrines 
of  devils.”  Could  you  find  a  woman  who  would  read  to  a  congre¬ 
gation,  as  words  of  truth,  Jonathan  Edwards’  Sermon  on  a  Future 
State,  —  “  Sinners  in  the  Hands  of  an  Angry  God,”  “  The  Justice 
of  God  in  the  Damnation  of  Sinners,”  “  Wrath  upon  the  Wicked  to 
the  uttermost,”  “  The  Future  Punishment  of  the  Wicked,”  and  other 
things  of  that  sort?  Nay,  can  you  find  a  worthy  woman,  of  any 
considerable  culture,  who  will  read  the  fourteenth  chapter  of 
Numbers,  and  declare  that  a  true  picture  of  the  God  she  worships? 
Only  a  she-dragon  could  do  it,  in  our  day. 

The  popular  theology  leaves  us  nothing  feminine  in  the  charac¬ 
ter  of  God.  How  could  it  be  otherwise,  when  so  much  of  the 
popular  theology  is  the  work  of  men,  who  thought  woman  was  a 
“  pollution,”  and  barred  her  out  of  all  the  high  places  of  the  church? 


THE  PUBLIC  FUNCTION  OF  WOMAN. 


17 


If  women  had  had  their  place  in  ecclesiastical  teaching,  I  doubt 
that  the  “  Athanasian  Creed  ”  would  ever  have  been  thought  a 
“  symbol  ”  of  Christianity.  The  pictures  and  hymns  which  de¬ 
scribe  the  last  judgment  are  a  protest  against  the  exclusion  of 
woman  from  teaching  in  the  church.  “  I  suffer  not  a  woman  to 
teach,  but  to  be  in  silence,”  said  a  writer  in  the  New  Testament. 
The  sentence  has  brought  manifold  evil  in  its  train. 

So  much  for  the  employments  of  women. 

By  nature,  woman  has  the  same  political  rights  that  man  has, 

—  to  vote,  to  hold  office,  to  make  and  administer  laws.  These 
she  has  as  a  matter  of  right.  The  strong  hand  and  the  great  head 
of  man  keep  her  down  ;  nothing  more.  In  America,  in  Christen¬ 
dom,  woman  has  no  political  rights,  is  not  a  citizen  in  full ;  she 
has  no  voice  in  making  or  administering  the  laws,  none  in  electing 
the  rulers  or  administrators  thereof.  She  can  hold  no  office,  — 
cannot  be  committee  of  a  primary  school,  overseer  of  the  poor,  or 
guardian  to  a  public  lamp-post.  But  any  man,  with  conscience 
enough  to  keep  out  of  jail,  mind  enough  to  escape  the  poor-house, 
and  body  enough  to  drop  his  ballot  into  the  box,  he  is  a  voter. 
He  may  have  no  character  —  even  no  money;  —  that  is  no  matter 

—  he  is  male.  The  noblest  woman  has  no  voice  in  the  state. 
Men  make  laws,  disposing  of  her  property,  her  person,  her  chil¬ 
dren  ;  still  she  must  bear  it,  “  with  a  patient  shrug.” 

Looking  at  it  as  a  matter  of  pure  right  and  pure  science,  I 
know  no  reason  why  woman  should  not  be  a  voter,  or  hold  office, 
or  make  and  administer  laws.  I  do  not  see  how  I  can  shut  my¬ 
self  into  political  privileges  and  shut  woman  out,  and  do  both  in 
the  name  of  unalienable  right.  Certainly,  every  woman  has  a 
natural  right  to  have  her  property  represented  in  the  general 
representation  of  property,  and  her  person  represented  in  the 
general  representation  of  persons. 

Looking  at  it  as  a  matter  of  expediency,  see  some  facts.  Sup¬ 
pose  woman  had  a  share  in  the  municipal  regulation  of  Boston, 
and  there  were  as  many  alderwomen  as  aldermen,  as  many  com¬ 
mon-council  women  as  common-council  men,  do  you  believe  that, 


18 


THE  PUBLIC  FUNCTION  OF  WOMAN. 


in  defiince  of  the  law  of  Massachusetts,  the  city  government,  last 
spring,  would  have  licensed  every  two  hundred  and  forty-fourth 
person  of  the  population  of  the  city  to  sell  intoxicating  drink  ? 
would  have  made  every  thirty-fifth  voter  a  rum-seller  ?  I  do  not. 

Do  you  believe  the  women  of  Boston  would  spend  ten  thousand 
dollars  in  one  year  in  a  city  frolic,  or  spend  two  or  three  thousand 
every  year,  on  the  Fourth  of  July,  for  sky-rockets  and  fire-crack¬ 
ers  ;  would  spend  four  or  five  thousand  dollars  to  get  their  Cana¬ 
dian  guests  drunk  in  Boston  harbor,  and  then  pretend  that  Boston 
had  not  money  enough  to  establish  a  high  school  for  girls,  to  teach 
the  daughters  of  mechanics  and  grocers  to  read  French  and  Latin, 
and  to  understand  the  higher  things  which  rich  men’s  sons  are 
driven  to  at  college  ?  I  do  not. 

Do  you  believe  that  the  women  of  Boston,  in  1851,  would  have 
spent  three  or  four  thousand  dollars  to  kidnap  a  poor  man,  and 
have  taken  all  the  chains  which  belonged  to  the  city  and  put  them 
round  the  court-house,  and  have  drilled  three  hundred  men, 
armed  with  bludgeons  and  cutlasses,  to  steal  a  man  and  carry  him 
back  to  slavery?  I  do  not.  Do  you  think,  if  the  women  had 
had  the  control,  “  fifteen  hundred  men  of  property  and  standing” 
would  have  volunteered  to  take  a  poor  man,  kidnapped  in  Boston, 
and  conduct  him  out  of  the  state,  with  fire  and  sword?  I  believe 
no  such  thing. 

Do  you  think  the  women  of  Boston  would  take  the  poorest  and 
most  unfortunate  children  in  the  town,  put  them  all  together  into 
one  school,  making  that  the  most  miserable  in  the  city,  where  they 
had  not  and  could  not  have  half  the  advantages  of  the  other 
children  in  different  schools,  and  all  that  because  the  unfortunates 
were  dark-colored  ?  Do  you  think  the  women  of  Boston  would 
shut  a  bright  boy  out  of  the  High  School  or  Latin  School,  because 
he  was  black  in  the  face  ? 

Women  are  said  to  be  cowardly.  When  Thomas  Sims,  out  of 
his  dungeon,  sent  to  the  churches  his  petition  for  their  prayers, 
had  women  been  “  the  Christian  clergy,”  do  you  believe  they 
would  not  have  dared  to  pray  ? 

If  women  had  a  voice  in  the  affairs  of  Massachusetts,  do  you 


THE  PUBLIC  I  UNCTION  OF  WOMAN. 


'19 


think  they  would  ever  have  made  laws  so  that  a  lazy  husband 
could  devour  all  the  substance  of  his  active  wife  —  spite  of  her 
wish  ;  so  that  a  drunken  husband  could  command  her  bodily  pres¬ 
ence  in  his  loathly  house ;  and  when  an  infamous  man  was  divorced 
from  his  wife,  that  he  could  keep  all  the  children  ?  I  confess  I 
do  not. 

If  the  affairs  of  the  nation  had  been  under  woman’s  joint 
control,  I  doubt  that  we  should  have  butchered  the  Indians  with 
such  exterminating  savagery,  that,  in  fifty  years,  we  should  have 
spent  seven  hundreds  of  millions  of  dollars  for  war,  and  now,  in 
time  of  peace,  send  twenty  annual  millions  more  to  the  same 
waste.  I  doubt  that  we  should  have  spread  slavery  into  nine  new 
states,  and  made  it  national.  I  think  the  Fugitive  Slave  Bill 
would  never  have  been  an  act.  Woman  has  some  respect  for  the 
natural  law  of  God. 

I  know  men  say  woman  cannot  manage  the  great  affairs  of  a 
nation.  Very  wrell.  Government  is  political  economy  —  na¬ 
tional  housekeeping.  Does  any  respectable  woman  keep  house 
so  badly  as  the  United  States  ?  with  so  much  bribery,  so  much 
corruption,  so  much  quarrelling  in  the  domestic  councils  ? 

But  government  is  also  political  morality,  it  is  national  ethics. 
Is  there  any  worthy  woman  who  rules  her  household  as  wickedly 
as  the  nations  are  ruled  ?  who  hires  bullies  to  fight  for  her  ?  I3 
there  any  woman  who  treats  one  sixth  part  of  her  household  as  if 
they  were  cattle  and  not  creatures  of  God,  as  if  they  were  things 
and  not  persons  ?  I  know  of  none  such.  In  government  as  house¬ 
keeping,  or  government  as  morality,  I  think  man  makes  a  very 
poor  appearance,  when  he  says  woman  could  not  do  as  well  as  he 
has  done  and  is  doing. 

I  doubt  that  women  will  ever,  as  a  general  thing,  take  the  same 
interest  as  men  in  political  affairs,  or  find  therein  an  abiding  satis¬ 
faction.  But  that  is  for  women  themselves  to  determine,  not 
for  men. 

In  order  to  attain  the  end,  —  the  development  of  man  in  body 
and  spirit, — human  institutions  must  represent  all  parts  of  human 


20 


THE  PUBLIC  FUNCTION  OF  WOMAN. 


nature,  both  the  masculine  and  the  feminine  element.  For  the 
well-being  of  the  human  race,  we  need  the  joint  action  of  man 
and  woman,  in  the  family,  the  community,  the  church  and  the 
state.  A  family  without  the  presence  of  woman  —  with  no 
mother,  no  wife,  no  sister,  no  womankind  —  is  a  sad  thing.  I 
think  a  community  without  woman’s  equal  social  action,  a  church 
without  her  equal  ecclesiastical  action,  and  a  state  without  her 
equal  political  action,  is  almost  as  bad  —  is  very  much  what  a 
house  would  be  without  a  mother,  wife,  sister  or  friend. 

You  see  what  prevails  in  the  Christian  civilization  of  the  nine¬ 
teenth  century ;  it  is  Force  —  force  of  body,  force  of  brain. 
There  is  little  justice,  little  philanthropy,  little  piety.  Selfishness 
preponderates  everywhere  in  Christendom  —  individual,  domestic, 
social,  ecclesiastical,  national  selfishness.  It  is  preached  as  gos¬ 
pel  and  enacted  as  law.  It  is  thought  good  political  economy  for 
1  strong  people  to  devour  the  weak  nations;  for  “Christian” 
England  and  America  to  plunder  the  “heathen”  and  annex  their 
land ;  for  a  strong  class  to  oppress  and  ruin  the  feeble  class ;  for 
the  capitalists  of  England  to  pauperize  the  poor  white  laborer,  for 
the  capitalists  of  America  to  enslave  the  poorer  black  laborer ;  for 
a  strong  man  to  oppress  the  weak  men ;  for  the  sharper  to  buy 
labor  too  cheap,  and  sell  its  product  too  dear,  and  so  grow  rich  by 
making  many  poor.  Hence,  nation  is  arrayed  against  nation,  class 
against  class,  man  against  man.  Nay,  it  is- commonly  taught  that 
mankind  is  arrayed  against  God,  and  God  against  man ;  that  the 
world  is  a  universal  discord  ;  that  there  is  no  solidarity  of  man 
with  man,  of  man  with  God.  I  fear  we  shall  never  get  far  beyond 
this  theory  and  this  practice,  until  woman  has  her  natural  rights 
as  the  equal  of  man,  and  takes  her  natural  place  in  regulating  the 
affairs  of  the  family,  the  community,  the  church  and  the  state. 

It  seems  to  me  God  has  treasured  up  a  reserved  power  in  the 
nature  of  woman  to  correct  many  of  those  evils  which  are  Chris¬ 
tendom’s  disgrace  to-day. 

Circumstances  help  or  hinder  our  development,  and  are  one  of 
the  two  forces  which  determine  the  actual  character  of  a  nation 
or  of  mankind,  at  any  special  period.  Hitherto,  amongst  men, 


TIIE  PUBLIC  FUNCTION*  OF  WOMAN. 


21 


circumstances  have  favored  the  development  of  only  intellectual 
power,  in  all  its  forms  —  chiefly  in  its  lower  forms.  At  present, 
mankind,  as  a  whole,  has  the  superiority  over  womankind,  as  a 
whole,  in  all  that  pertains  to  intellect,  the  higher  and  the  lower. 
Man  has  knowledge,  has  ideas,  has  administrative  skill ;  enacts 
the  rules  of  conduct  for  the  individual,  the  family,  the  community, 
the  church,  the  state,  and  the  world.  He  applies  these  rules  of 
conduct  to  life,  and  so  controls  the  great  affairs  of  the  human 
race.  You  see  what  a  world  he  has  made  of  it.  There  is  male 
vigor  in  this  civilization,  miscalled  “  Christian;”  and  in  its  leading 
nations  there  are  industry  and  enterprise,  which  never  fail.  There 
is  science,  literature,  legislation,  agriculture,  manufactures,  mining, 
commerce,  such  as  the  world  never  saw.  With  the  vigor  of  war, 
the  Anglo-Saxon  now  works  the  works  of  peace.  England  abounds 
in  wealth,  —  richest  of  lands;  but  look  at  her  poor,  her  vast  army 
of  paupers,  two  million  strong,  the  Irish  whom  she  drives  with 
the  hand  of  famine  across  the  sea.  Martin  Luther  was  right  when 
he  said,  The  richer  the  nation,  the  poorer  the  poor.  America  is 
“democratic”  —  “the  freest  and  most  enlightened  people  in  the 
world.”  Look  at  her  slaves ;  every  sixth  woman  in  the  country 
sold  as  a  beast ;  with  no  more  legal  respect  paid  to  her  mar¬ 
riage  than  the  farmer  pays  to  the  conjunctions  of  his  swine. 
America  is  well  educated ;  there  are  four  millions  of  children  in 
the  school-houses  of  the  land;  it  is  a  states-prison  offence  to  teach 
a  slave  to  read  the  three  letters  which  spell  God.  The  more  “  dem¬ 
ocratic  ”  the  country,  the  tighter  is  bondage  ironed  on  the  slave. 
Look  at  the  cities  of  England  and  America.  What  riches,  what 
refinement,  what  culture  of  man  and  woman  too  !  Ay  ;  but  what 
poverty,  what  ignorance,  what  beastliness  of  man  and  woman  too ! 
The  Christian  civilization  of  the  nineteenth  century  is  well  summed 
up  in  London  and  New  York  —  the  two  foci  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
tribe,  which  control  the  shape  of  the  world’s  commercial  ellipse. 
Look  at  the  riches,  and  the  misery;  at  the  “religious  enterprise,” 
and  the  heathen  darkness ;  at  the  virtue,  the  decorum  and  the 
beauty  of  woman  well-born  and  well-bred  —  and  at  the  wild  sea 


TIIE  PUBLIC  FUNCTION  OF  W0JIA3 


22 

of  prostitution,  which  swells  and  breaks  and  dasLes  against  the 
bulwarks  of  society  —  every  ripple  was  a  woman  once ! 

0,  brother-men,  who  make  these  things,  is  this  a  pleasant  sight? 
Does  your  literature  complain  of  it  —  of  the  waste  of  human  life, 
the  slaughter  of  human  souls,  the  butchery  of  woman  ?  British 
literature  begins  to  wail,  in  “Nicholas  Nickleby,”  and  “Jane 
Eyre,”  and  “  Mary  Barton,”  and  “  Alton  Locke,”  in  many  a 
“Song  of  the  Shirt;”  but  the  respectable  literature  of  America 
is  deaf  as  a  cent  to  the  outcry  of  humanity  expiring  in  agonies. 
It  is  busy  with  California,  or  the  Presidency,  or  extolling  iniquity 
in  high  places,  or  flattering  the  vulgar  vanity  which  buys  its  dross 
for  gold.  It  cannot  even  imitate  the  philanthropy  of  English  let¬ 
ters  ;  it  is  “  up  ”  for  California  and  a  market.  Does  not  the 
church  speak?  —  the  English  church,  with  its  millions  of  money, 
the  American,  with  its  millions  of  men,  —  both  wont  to  bay  the 
moon  of  foreign  heathenism?  The  church  is  a  dumb  dog,  that 
cannot  bark,  sleeping,  lying  down,  loving  to  slumber.  It  is  a 
church  without  woman,  believing  in  a  male  and  jealous  God,  and 
rejoicing  in  a  boundless,  endless  hell ! 

Hitherto,  with  woman,  circumstances  have  hindered  the  devel¬ 
opment  of  intellectual  power,  in  all  its  forms.  She  has  not  knowl¬ 
edge,  has  not  ideas  or  practical  skill  to  equal  the  force  of  man. 
But  circumstances  have  favored  the  development  of  pure  and  lofty 
emotion  in  advance  of  man.  She  has  moral  feeling,  affectional 
feeling,  religious  feeling, far  in  advance  of  man;  her  moral,  aflec- 
tional  and  religious  intuitions  are  deeper  and  more  trustworthy 
than  his.  Here  she  is  eminent,  as  he  is  in  knowledge,  in  ideas,  in 
administrative  skill. 

I  think  man  will  always  lead  in  affairs  of  intellect,  —  of  reason, 
imagination,  understanding, —  he  has  the  bigger  brain;  but  that 
woman  will  always  lead  in  affairs  of  emotion, —  moral,  affectional, 
religious,  —  she  has  the  better  heart,  the  truer  intuition  of  the 
right,  the  lovely,  the  holy.  The  literature  of  women  in  this  cen¬ 
tury  is  juster,  more  philanthropic,  more  religious,  than  that  of  men. 
Do  you  not  hear  the  cry  which,  in  New  England,  a  woman  is 
raising  in  the  world’s  ears  against  the  foul  wrong  which  America 


THE  PUBLIC  FUNCTION  OF  WOMAN. 


2'6 


t 

is  working  in  the  world  ?  Do  you  not  hear  the  echo  of  that 
woman’s  voice  come  over  the  Atlantic,  —  returned  from  European 
shores  in  many  a  tongue,  —  French,  German,  Italian,  Swedish, 
Danish,  Russian,  Dutch  ?  How  a  woman  touches  the  world's 
heart!  —  because  she  speaks  justice,  speaks  piety,  speaks  love. 
What  voice  is  strongest  raised  in  continental  Europe,  pleading  for 
the  oppressed  and  down-trodden  ?  That  also  is  a  woman’s  voice  ! 

Well,  we  want  the  excellence  of  man  and  woman  both  united  ; 
intellectual  power,  knowledge,  great  ideas  —  in  literature,  philos¬ 
ophy,  theology,  ethics  —  and  practical  skill;  but  we  want  some¬ 
thing  better  —  the  moral,  affectional,  religious  intuition,  to  put 
justice  into  ethics,  love  into  theology,  piety  into  science  and  let¬ 
ters.  Everywhere  in  the  family,  the  community,  the  church  and 
the  state,  we  want  the  masculine  and  feminine  element  cooper¬ 
ating  and  conjoined.  Woman  is  to  correct  man’s  taste,  mend  his 
morals,  excite  his  affections,  inspire  his  religious  faculties.  Man 
is  to  quicken  her  intellect,  to  help  her  will,  translate  her  senti¬ 
ments  to  ideas,  and  enact  them  into  righteous  laws.  Man’s  moral 
action,  at  best,  is  only  a  sort  of  general  human  providence,  aim¬ 
ing  at  the  welfare  of  a  part,  and  satisfied  with  achieving  the 
“greatest  good  of  the  greatest  number.”  Woman’s  moral  action 
is  more  like  a  special  human  providence,  acting  without  general 
rules,  but  caring  for  each  particular  case.  We  need  both  of 
these,  the  general  and  the  special,  to  make  a  total  human  prov¬ 
idence. 

If  man  and  woman  are  counted  equivalent,  —  equal  in  rights, 
though  with  diverse  powers,  —  shall  we  not  mend  the  literature 
of  the  world,  its  theology,  its  science,  its  laws,  and  its  actions  too  ? 
I  cannot  believe  that  wealth  and  want  are  to  stand  ever  side  by 
side  as  desperate  foes ;  that  culture  must  ride  only  on  the  back  of 
ignorance ;  and  feminine  virtue  be  guarded  by  the  degradation  of 
whole  classes  of  ill-starred  men,  as  in  the  East,  or  the  degradation 
of  whole  classes  of  ill-starred  women,  as  in  the  West ;  but  while 
wre  neglect  the  means  of  help  God  puts  in  our  power,  why,  the 
present  must  be  like  the  past  —  “property”  must  be  theft,  “law” 


24 


THE  PUBLIC  FUNCTIONS  OF  WOMAN. 


the  strength  of  selfish  will,  and  “  Christianity”  —  what  we  see  it 
is,  the  apology  for  every  powerful  wrong. 

To  every  woman  let  me  say,  —  Respect  your  nature  as  a  human 
being,  your  nature  as  a  woman ;  then  respect  your  rights,  then 
remember  your  duty  to  possess,  to  use,  to  develop  and  to  enjoy 
every  faculty  which  God  has  given  you,  each  in  its  normal  way. 

And  to  men  let  me  say,  —  Respect,  with  the  profoundest  rev¬ 
erence  respect  the  mother  that  bore  you,  the  sisters  who  bless  you, 
the  woman  that  you  love,  the  woman  that  you  marry.  As  you 
seek  to  possess  your  own  manly  rights,  seek  also,  by  that  great 
arm,  by  that  powerful  brain,  seek  to  vindicate  her  rights  as 
woman,  as  your  own  as  man.  Then  we  may  see  better  things  in 
the  church,  better  things  in  the  state,  in  the  community,  in  the 
home.  Then  the  green  shall  show  what  buds  it  hid,  the  buds  shall 
blossom,  the  flowers  bear  fruit,  and  the  blessing  of  God  be  on 
us  all. 


